_June 1st_, 1917.
DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--In looking back over my two preceding letters, I
realise how inadequately they express the hundredth part of that vast
and insoluble debt of a guilty Germany to an injured France, the
realisation of which became--for me--in Lorraine, on the Ourcq, and in
Artois, a burning and overmastering thing, from which I was rarely or
never free. And since I returned to England on March 16th, the conduct
of the German troops, under the express orders of the German Higher
Command, in the French districts evacuated since February by
Hindenburg's retreating forces, has only sharpened and deepened the
judgment of civilised men, with regard to the fighting German and all
his ways, which has been formed long since, beyond alteration or recall.
Think of it! It cries to heaven. Think of Reims and Arras, of Verdun and
Ypres, think of the hundreds of towns and villages, the thousands of
individual houses and farms, that lie ruined on the old soil of France;
think of the sufferings of the helpless and the old, the hideous loss of
life, of stored-up wealth, of natural and artistic beauty; and then let
us ask ourselves again the old, old question--why has this happened? And
let us go back again to the root facts, from which, whenever he or she
considers them afresh--and they should be constantly considered
afresh--every citizen of the Allied nations can only draw fresh courage
to endure. The long and passionate preparation for war in Germany; the
half-mad literature of a glorified "force" headed by the Bernhardis and
Treitschkes, and repeated by a thousand smaller folk, before the war;
the far more illuminating manifestoes of the intellectuals since the
war; Germany's refusal of a conference, as proposed and pressed by Great
Britain, in the week before August 4th, France's acceptance of it;
Germany's refusal to respect the Belgian neutrality to which she had
signed her name, France's immediate consent; the provisions of mercy and
of humanity signed by Germany in the Hague Convention trampled, almost
with a sneer, under foot; the jubilation over the _Lusitania_, and the
arrogant defence of all that has been most cruel and most criminal in
the war, as necessary to Germany's interests, and therefore moral,
therefore justified; let none--none!--of these things rest forgotten in
our minds until peace is here, and justice done!
The German armies are capable of "_no undisciplined cruelty_," said the
93 Professors, without seeing how damning was the phrase. No!--theirs
was a cruelty by order, meditated, organised, and deliberate. The
stories of Senlis, of Vareddes, of Gerbéviller which I have specially
chosen, as free from that element of sexual horror which repels many
sensitive people from even trying to realise what has happened in this
war, are evidences--one must insist again--of a national mind and
quality, with which civilised Europe and civilised America can make no
truce. And what folly lies behind the wickedness! Let me recall to
American readers some of the phrases in the report of your former
Minister in Belgium--Mr. Brand Whitlock--on the Belgian deportations,
the "slave hunts" that Germany has carried out in Belgium and "which
have torn from nearly every humble home in the land, a husband, father,
son, or brother."
These proceedings [says Mr. Whitlock] place in relief the German
capacity for blundering almost as sharply as the German capacity for
cruelty. They have destroyed for generations any hope whatever of
friendly relations between themselves and the Belgian people. For these
things were done not, as with the early atrocities, in the heat of
passion and the first lust of war, but by one of those deeds that make
one despair of the future of the human race--a deed coldly planned,
studiously matured, and deliberately and systematically executed, a deed
so cruel that German soldiers are said to have wept in its execution,
and so monstrous that even German officers are now said to be ashamed.
But the average German neither weeps nor blames. He is generally amazed,
when he is not amused, by the state of feeling which such proceedings
excite. And if he is an "intellectual," a professor, he will exhaust
himself in ingenious and utterly callous defences of all that Germany
has done or may do. An astonishing race--the German professors! The year
before the war there was an historical congress in London. There was a
hospitality committee, and my husband and I were asked to entertain some
of the learned men. I remember one in particular--an old man with white
hair, who with his wife and daughter joined the party after dinner. His
name was Professor Otto von Gierke of the University of Berlin. I
gathered from his conversation that he and his family had been very
kindly entertained in London. His manner was somewhat harsh and
over-bearing, but his white hair and spectacles gave him a venerable
aspect, and it was clear that he and his wife and daughter belonged to a
cultivated and intelligent _milieu_. But who among his English hosts
could possibly have imagined the thoughts and ideas in that grey head? I
find a speech of his in a most illuminating book by a Danish professor
on German Chauvinist literature. [_Hurrah and Hallelujah!_ By J. P.
Bang, D.D., Professor of Theology at the University of Copenhagen,
translated by Jessie Bröchner.] The speech was published in a collection
called _German Speeches in Hard Times_, which contains names once so
distinguished as those of Von Wilamovitz and Harnack.
Professor von Gierke's effusion begins with the usual German falsehoods
as to the origin of the war, and then continues--"But now that we
Germans are plunged in war, we will have it in _all its grandeur and
violence_! Neither fear nor _pity_ shall stay our arm before it has
completely brought our enemies to the ground." They shall be reduced to
such a condition that they shall never again dare even to snarl at
Germany. Then German Kultur will show its full loveliness and strength,
enlightening "the understanding of the foreign races absorbed and
incorporated into the Empire, and making them see that only from German
kultur can they derive those treasures which they need for their own
particular life."
At the moment when these lines were written--for the book was published
early in the war--the orgy of murder and lust and hideous brutality
which had swept through Belgium in the first three weeks of the war was
beginning to be known in England; the traces of it were still fresh in
town after town and village after village of that tortured land; while
the testimony of its victims was just beginning to be sifted by the
experts of the Bryce Commission.
The hostages of Vareddes, the helpless victims of Nomény, of
Gerbéviller, of Sermaize, of Sommeilles, and a score of other places in
France were scarcely cold in their graves. But the old white-haired
professor stands there, unashamed, unctuously offering the kultur of his
criminal nation to an expectant world! "And when the victory is won," he
says complacently--"the whole world will stand open to us, our war
expenses will be paid by the vanquished, the black-white-and-red flag
will wave over all seas; our countrymen will hold highly respected posts
in all parts of the world, and we shall maintain and extend our
colonies."
_God, forbid!_ So says the whole English-speaking race, you on your side
of the sea, and we on ours.
But the feeling of abhorrence which is not, at such a moment as this,
sternly and incessantly translated into deeds is of no account! So let
me return to a last survey of the War. On my home journey from Nancy, I
passed through Paris, and was again welcomed at G.H.Q. on my way to
Boulogne. In Paris, the breathless news of the Germans' quickening
retreat on the Somme and the Aisne was varied one morning by the welcome
tidings of the capture of Bagdad; and at the house of one of the most
distinguished of European publicists, M. Joseph Reinach, of the
_Figaro_, I met, on our passage through, the lively, vigorous man, with
his look of Irish vivacity and force--M. Painlevé--who only a few days
later was to succeed General Lyautey as French Minister for War. At our
own headquarters, I found opinion as quietly confident as before. We
were on the point of entering Bapaume; the "pushing up" was going
extraordinarily well, owing to the excellence of the staff-work, and the
energy and efficiency of all the auxiliary services--the Engineers, and
the Labour Battalions, all the makers of roads and railways, the
builders of huts, and levellers of shell-broken ground. And the vital
importance of the long struggle on the Somme was becoming every day more
evident. Only about Russia, both in Paris and at G.H.Q., was there a
kind of silence which meant great anxiety. Lord Milner and General
Castelnau had returned from Petrograd. In Paris, at any rate, it was not
believed that they brought good news. All the huge efforts of the Allies
to supply Russia with money, munitions, and transport, were they to go
for nothing, owing to some sinister and thwarting influence which seemed
to be strangling the national life?
Then a few days after my return home, the great explosion came, and when
the first tumult and dust of it cleared away, there, indeed, was a
strangely altered Europe! From France, Great Britain, and America went
up a great cry of sympathy, of congratulation. The Tsardom was
gone!--the "dark forces" had been overthrown; the political exiles were
free; and Freedom seemed to stand there on the Russian soil shading her
bewildered eyes against the sun of victory, amazed at her own deed.
But ten weeks have passed since then, and it would be useless to
disguise that the outburst of warm and sincere rejoicing that greeted
the overthrow of the Russian autocracy has passed once more into
anxiety. Is Russia going to count any more in this great struggle for a
liberated Europe, or will the forces of revolution devour each other,
till in the course of time the fated "saviour of society" appears, and
old tyrannies come back? General Smuts, himself the hero of a national
struggle which has ended happily for both sides and the world, has been
giving admirable expression here to the thoughts of many hearts. First
of all to the emotion with which all lovers of liberty have seen the all
but bloodless fall of the old tyranny. "It might have taken another
fifty years or a century of tragedy and suffering to have brought it
about! But the enormous strain of this war has done it, and the Russian
people stand free in their own house." Now, what will they do with their
freedom? Ten weeks have passed, and the Russian armies are still
disorganised, the Russian future uncertain. Meanwhile Germany has been
able to throw against the Allies in France, and Austria has been able to
throw against Italy on the Isonzo, forces which they think they need no
longer against Russia, and the pace of victory has thereby been
slackened. But General Smuts makes his eloquent appeal to the Russia
which once held and broke Napoleon:
"Liberty is like young wine--it mounts to your head sometimes, and
liberty, as a force in the world, requires organisation and
discipline.... There must be organisation, and there must be discipline.
The Russian people are learning to-day the greatest lesson of life--that
to be free you must work very hard and struggle very hard. They have the
sensation of freedom, now that their bonds and shackles are gone, and no
doubt they feel the joy, the intoxication, of their new experience; but
they are living in a world which is not governed by formulas, however
cleverly devised, but in a world of brute force, and unless that is
smashed, even liberty itself will suffer and cannot live."
Will the newly-freed forget those that are still suffering and bound?
Will Russia forget Belgium?--and forget Serbia?
"Serbia was the reason why we went to war. She was going to be crushed
under the Austrian heel, and Russia said this shall not be allowed.
Serbia has in that way become the occasion probably of the greatest
movement for freedom the world has ever seen. Are we going to forget
Serbia? No! We must stand by those martyr peoples who have stood by the
great forces of the world. If the great democracies of the world become
tired, if they become faint, if they halt by the way, if they leave
those little ones in the lurch, then they shall pay for it in wars more
horrible than human mind can foresee. I am sure we shall stand by those
little ones. They have gone under, but we have not gone under. England
and America, France and Russia, have not gone under, and we shall see
them through, and shame on us if ever the least thought enters our minds
of not seeing them through."
* * * * *
Noble and sincere words! One can but hope that the echoes of them may
reach the ear and heart of Russia.
But if towards Russia the sky that seemed to have cleared so suddenly is
at present clouded and obscure--"westward, look, the land is bright!"
A fortnight after the abdication of the Tsar, Congress met in
Washington, and President Wilson's speech announcing war between Germany
and America had rung through the world. All that you, sir, the constant
friend and champion of the Allies, and still more of their cause, and
all that those who feel with you in the States have hoped for so long,
is now to be fulfilled. It may take some time for your country, across
those thousand miles of sea, to _realise_ the war, to feel it in every
nerve, as we do. But in these seven weeks--how much you have done, as
well as said! You have welcomed the British mission in a way to warm our
British hearts; you have shown the French mission how passionately
America feels for France. You have sent us American destroyers, which
have already played their part in a substantial reduction of the
submarine losses. You have lent the Allies 150 millions sterling. You
have passed a Bill which will ultimately give you an army of two million
men. You are raising such troops as will immediately increase the number
of Americans in France to 100,000--equalling five German divisions. You
are sending us ten thousand doctors to England and France, and hundreds
of them have already arrived. You have doubled the personnel of your
Navy, and increased your Regular Army by nearly 180,000 men. You are
constructing 3,500 aeroplanes, and training 6,000 airmen. And you are
now talking of 100,000 aeroplanes! Not bad, for seven weeks!
* * * * *
For the Allies also those seven weeks have been full of achievement. On
Easter Monday, April 9th, the Battle of Arras began, with the brilliant
capture by the Canadians of that very Vimy Ridge I had seen on March
2nd, from the plateau of Notre Dame de Lorette, lying in the middle
distance under the spring sunshine. That exposed hill-side--those
batteries through which I had walked--those crowded roads, and
travelling guns, those marching troops and piled ammunition dumps!--how
the recollection of them gave accent and fire to the picture of the
battle as the telegrams from the front built it up day by day before
one's eyes! Week by week, afterwards, with a mastery in artillery and in
aviation that nothing could withstand, the British Army pushed on
through April. After the first great attack which gave us the Vimy Ridge
and brought our line close to Lens in the north, and to the
neighbourhood of Bullecourt in the south, the 23rd of April saw the
second British advance, which gave us Gravrelle and Guemappe, and made
further breaches in the Hindenburg line. On April 16th the French made
their magnificent attack in Champagne, with 10,000 prisoners on the
first day (increased to 31,000 by May 24th)--followed by the capture of
the immensely important positions of Moronvillers and Craonne.
Altogether the Allies in little more than a month took 50,000 prisoners,
and large numbers of guns. General Allenby, for instance, captured 150
guns, General Home 64, while General Byng formed three "Pan-Germanic
groups" out of his. We recovered many square miles of the robbed
territory of France--40 villages one day, 100 villages another; while
the condition in which the Germans had left both the recovered territory
and its inhabitants has steeled once more the determination of the
nations at war with Germany to put an end to "this particular form of
ill-doing on the part of an uncivilised race."
During May there has been no such striking advance on either the French
or British fronts, though Roeux and Bullecourt, both very important
points, from their bearing on the Drocourt-Quéant line, behind which lie
Douai and Cambrai, have been captured by the British, and the French
have continuously bettered their line and defied the most desperate
counter-attacks. But May has been specially Italy's month! The Italian
offensive on the Isonzo, and the Carso, beginning on May 14th, in ten
days achieved more than any onlooker had dared to hope. In the section
between Tolmino and Gorizia where the Isonzo runs in a fine gorge, the
western bank belonging to Italy, and the eastern to Austria, all the
important heights on the eastern bank across the river, except one that
may fall to them any day, have been carried by the superb fighting of
the Italians, amongst whom Dante's fellow citizens, the Florentine
regiment, and regiments drawn from the rich Tuscan hills have specially
distinguished themselves. While on the Carso, that rock-wilderness which
stretches between Gorizia and Trieste, where fighting, especially in hot
weather, supplies a supreme test of human endurance, the Italians have
pushed on and on, from point to point, till now they are within ten
miles of Trieste. British artillery is with the Italian Army, and
British guns have been shelling military quarters and stores in the
outskirts of Trieste, while British monitors are co-operating at sea.
The end is not yet, for the Austrians will fight to their last man for
Trieste; and owing to the Russian situation the Austrians have been able
to draw reinforcements from Galicia, which have seriously stiffened the
task of Italy. But the omens are all good, and the Italian nation is
more solidly behind its army than ever before.
So that in spite of the apparent lull in the Allied offensive on the
French front, during the later weeks of May, all has really been going
well. The only result of the furious German attempts to recover the
ground lost in April has been to exhaust the strength of the attackers;
and the Allied cause is steadily profited thereby. Our own troops have
never been more sure of final victory. Let me quote a soldier's plain
and graphic letter, recently published:
"This break-away from trench war gives us a much better time. We know
now that we are the top dogs, and that we are keeping the Germans on the
move. And they're busy wondering all the time; they don't know where the
next whack is coming from. Mind you, I'm far from saying that we can get
them out of the Hindenburg line without a lot of fighting yet, but it is
only a question of time. It's a different sensation going over the top
now from what it was in the early days. You see, we used to know that
our guns were not nearly so many as the Germans', and that we hadn't the
stuff to put over. Now we just climb out of a trench and walk behind a
curtain of fire. It makes a difference. It seems to me we are steadily
beating the Boche at his own game. He used to be strong in the matter of
guns, but that's been taken from him. He used gas--do you remember the
way the Canadians got the first lot? Well, now our gas shells are a bit
too strong for him, and so are our flame shells. I bet he wishes now
that he hadn't thought of his flame-throwers! ... Then there's another
thing, and that's the way our chaps keep improving. The Fritzes are not
so good as they used to be. You get up against a bunch now and again
that fight well, but we begin to see more of the 'Kamerad' business.
It's as much up to the people at home to see this thing through as it is
to the men out here. We need the guns and shells to blow the Germans out
of the strong places that they've had years to build and dig, and the
folks at home can leave the rest to us. We can do the job all right if
they back us up and don't get tired. I think we've shown them that too.
You'll get all that from the papers, but maybe it comes better from a
soldier. You can take it from me that it's true. I've seen the
beginning, and I've been in places where things were pretty desperate
for us, and I've seen _the start of the finish_. The difference is
marvellous. I've only had an army education, and it might strike you
that I'm not able to judge. I'm a soldier though, and I look at it as a
soldier. I say, give us the stuff, keep on giving us the tools and the
men to use them, and--it may be soon or it may be long--we'll beat the
Boche to his knees."
The truth seems to be that the Germans are outmatched, first and
foremost, in aircraft and in guns. You will remember the quiet certainty
of our young Flight-Commander on March 1st--"When the next big offensive
comes, we shall down them, just as we did on the Somme." The prophecy
has been made good, abundantly good!--at the cost of many a precious
life. The air observation on our side has been far better and more
daring than that on the German side; and the work of our artillery has
been proportionately more accurate and more effective.
As to guns and ammunition, "the number of heavy shells fired in the
first week of the present offensive"--says an official account--"was
nearly twice as great as it was in the first week of the Somme
offensive, and in the second week it was 6-1/2 times as great as it was
in the second week of the Somme offensive. As a result of this great
artillery fire, which had never been exceeded in the whole course of the
war, a great saving of British life has been effected." And no praise
can be too high for our gunners. In a field where, two years ago,
Germany had the undisputed predominance, we have now beaten her alike in
the supply of guns and in the daring and efficiency of our gunners.
Nevertheless, let there be no foolish underestimate of the still
formidable strength of the Germans. The British and French missions will
have brought to your Government all available information on this point.
There can be no doubt that a "wonderful" effort, as one of our Ministers
calls it, has been made by Germany during the past winter. She has
mobilised all her people for the war as she has never done yet. She has
increased her munitions and put fresh divisions in the field. The
estimates of her present fighting strength given by our military writers
and correspondents do not differ very much.
Colonel Repington, in _The Times_, puts the German fighting men on both
fronts at 4,500,000, with 500,000 on the lines of communication, and a
million in the German depots. Mr. Belloc's estimate is somewhat less,
but not materially different. Both writers agree that we are in presence
of Germany's last and greatest effort, that she has no more behind, and
that if the Allies go on as they have begun--and now with the help of
America--this summer should witness the fulfilment at least of that
forecast which I reported to you in my earlier letters as so general
among the chiefs of our Army in France--_i.e._ "this year will see the
war _decided_, but may not see it ended." Since I came home, indeed,
more optimistic prophecies have reached me from France. For some weeks
after the American declaration of war, "We shall be home by Christmas!"
was the common cry--and amongst some of the best-informed.
But the Russian situation has no doubt: reacted to some extent on these
April hopes. And it is clear that, during April and early May, under the
stimulus of the submarine successes, German spirits have temporarily
revived. Never have the Junkers been more truculent, never have the
Pan-Germans talked wilder nonsense about "annexation" and "indemnities."
Until quite recently at any rate, the whole German nation--except no
doubt a cautious and intelligent few at the real sources of
information--believed that the submarine campaign would soon "bring
England to her knees." They were so confident, that they ran the last
great risk--they brought America into the War!
How does it look now? The situation is still critical and dangerous. But
I recall the half-smiling prophecy of my naval host, in the middle of
March, as we stood together on the deck of his ship, looking over his
curtseying and newly-hatched flock of destroyers gathered round him in
harbour. Was it not, perhaps, as near the mark as that of our airmen
hosts on March 1st has proved itself to be? "Have patience and you'll
see great things! The situation is serious, but quite healthy." Two
months, and a little more, since the words were spoken:--and week by
week, heavy as it still is, the toll of submarine loss is at least kept
in check, and your Navy, now at work with ours--most fitting and
welcome Nemesis!--is helping England to punish and baffle the
"uncivilised race," who, if they had their way, would blacken and defile
for ever the old and glorious record of man upon the sea. You, who store
such things in your enviable memory, will recollect how in the Odyssey,
that kindly race of singers and wrestlers, the Phaeacians, are the
escorts and conveyers of all who need and ask for protection at sea.
They keep the waterways for civilised men, against pirates and
assassins, as your nation and ours mean to keep them in the future. It
is true that a treacherous sea-god, jealous of any interference with his
right to slay and drown at will, smote the gallant ship that bore
Odysseus safely home, on her return, and made a rock of her for ever.
Poseidon may stand for the Kaiser of the story. He is gone, however,
with all his kin! But the humane and civilising tradition of the sea,
which this legend carries back into the dawn of time--it shall be for
the Allies--shall it not?--in this war, to rescue it, once and for ever,
from the criminal violence which would stain the free paths of ocean
with the murder and sudden death of those who have been in all history
the objects of men's compassion and care--the wounded, the helpless, the
woman, and the child.
* * * * *
For the rest, let me gather up a few last threads of this second
instalment of our British story.
Of that vast section of the war concerned with the care and transport of
the wounded, and the health of the Army, it is not my purpose to speak
at length in these Letters. Like everything else it has been steadily
and eagerly perfected during the past year. Never have the wounded in
battle, in any war, been so tenderly and skilfully cared for;--never
have such intelligence and goodwill been applied to the health
conditions of such huge masses of men. Nor is it necessary to dwell
again, as I did last year, on the wonderful work of women in the war. It
has grown in complexity and bulk; women-workers in munitions are now
nearly a fifth of the whole body; but essentially the general aspect of
it has not changed much in the last twelve months.
But what has changed is _the food situation_, owing partly to submarine
attack, and partly to the general shortage in the food-supply of the
world. In one of my earlier letters I spoke with anxiety of the still
unsettled question--Will the house-wives and mothers of the nation
realise--in time--our food necessities? Will their thrift-work in the
homes complete the munition-work of women in the factories? Or must we
submit to the ration-system, with all its cumbrous inequalities, and its
hosts of officials; because the will and intelligence of our people,
which have risen so remarkably to the other tasks of this war, are not
equal to the task of checking food consumption without compulsion?
It looks now as though they would be equal. Since my earlier letter the
country has been more and more generally covered with the National War
Savings Committees which have been carrying into food-economy the energy
they spent originally on the raising of the last great War Loan. The
consumption of bread and flour throughout the country has gone down--not
yet sufficiently--but enough to show that the idea has taken
hold:--"_Save bread, and help victory_!" And since your declaration of
war it strengthens our own effort to know that America with her
boundless food-supplies is standing by, and that her man-and sea-power
are now to be combined with ours in defeating the last effort of Germany
to secure by submarine piracy what she cannot win on the battle-field.
Meanwhile changes which will have far-reaching consequences after the
war are taking place in our own home food-supply. The long neglect of
our home agriculture, the slow and painful dwindling of our country
populations, are to come to an end. The Government calls for the sowing
of three million additional acres of wheat in Great Britain; and
throughout the country the steam tractors are at work ploughing up land
which has either never borne wheat, or which has ceased to bear it for
nearly a century. Thirty-five thousand acres of corn land are to be
added to the national store in this county of Hertfordshire alone. The
wages of agricultural labourers, have risen by more than one-third. The
farmers are to be protected and encouraged as they never have been since
the Cobdenite revolution; and the Corn Production Bill now passing
through Parliament shows what the grim lesson of this war has done to
change the old and easy optimism of our people.
As to the energy that has been thrown into other means of food-supply,
let the potatoes now growing in the flower-beds in front of Buckingham
Palace stand for a symbol of it! The potato-crop of this year--barring
accidents--will be enormous; and the whole life of our country villages
has been quickened by the effort that has been made to increase the
produce of the cottage gardens and allotments. The pride and pleasure of
the women and the old men in what they have been able to do at home,
while their sons and husbands are fighting at the front, is moving to
see. Food prices are very high; life in spite of increased wages is
hard. But the heart of England is set on winning this war; and the
letters which pass between the fathers and mothers in this village where
I live, and the sons at the front, in whom they take a daily and hourly
pride, would not give Germany much comfort could she read them. I take
this little scene, as an illustration, fresh from the life of my
own village:
Imagine a visitor, on behalf of the food-economy movement, endeavouring
to persuade a village mother to come to some cookery lessons organised
by the local committee.
Mrs. S. is discovered sitting at a table on which are preparations for a
meal. She receives the visitor and the visitor's remarks with an
air--quite unconscious--of tragic meditation; and her honest
labour-stained hand sweeps over the things on the table.
"Cheese!"--she says, at last--"_eightpence_ the 'arf pound!"
A pause. The hand points in another direction.
"_Lard--sevenpence_--that scrubby little piece! _Sugar_! sixpence
'a'penny the pound. The best part of two shillin's gone! Whatever _are_
we comin' to?"
Gloom descends on the little kitchen. The visitor is at a loss--when
suddenly the round, motherly face changes.--"But _there_ now! I'm goin'
to smile, whatever 'appens. I'm not one as is goin' to give in! And we
'ad a letter from Arthur [her son in the trenches] this morning, to say
'is Company's on the list for leave, and 'e's applied.--Oh dear, Miss,
just to _think_ of it!"
Then, with a catch in her voice:
"But it's not the comin' home, Miss--it's _the goin' back again_! Yes,
I'll come to the cookin', Miss, if I _possibly_ can!"
There's the spirit of our country folk--patriotic, patient, true.
As to labour conditions generally. I spoke, perhaps, in my first letter
rather too confidently, for the moment, of the labour situation. There
has been one serious strike among the engineers since I began to write,
and a good many minor troubles. But neither the Tyne nor the Clyde was
involved, and though valuable time was lost, in the end the men were
brought back to work quite as much by the pressure of public opinion
among their own comrades, men and women, as by any Government action.
The Government have since taken an important step from which much is
hoped, by dividing up the country into districts and appointing local
commissioners to watch over and, if they can, remove the causes of
"unrest"--causes which are often connected with the inevitable friction
of a colossal transformation, and sometimes with the sheer fatigue of
the workers, whose achievement--munition-workers, ship-wrights,
engineers--during these three years has been nothing short of
marvellous.
As to finance, the colossal figures of last year, of which I gave a
summary in _England's Effort,_ have been much surpassed. The Budget of
Great Britain for this year, including advances to our Allies, reaches
the astounding figure of two thousand three hundred million sterling.
Our war expenditure is now close upon six million sterling a day
(£5,600,000). Of this the expenditure on the Army and Navy and munitions
has risen from a daily average of nearly three millions sterling, as it
stood last year, to a daily average of nearly five millions.
But the nation has not spent in vain!
"Compare the first twenty-four days of the fighting on the Somme last
year,"--said Mr. Bonar Law in a recent speech--"with the first
twenty-four days of the operations of this spring. Four times as much
territory had been taken from the enemy in this offensive as was taken
in the Somme, against the resistance of double the number of German
divisions. And of those divisions just one-half have had to be
withdrawn--shattered--from the fighting line while the British
casualties in the offensive have been from 50 to 75 per cent, less than
the casualties in the Somme fighting."
Consider, too, the news which is still fresh as I finish this
letter--(June 11th)--of the victory of Messines; perhaps the most
complete, the most rounded success--so far--that has fallen to the
British armies in the war! Last year, in three months' fighting on the
Somme, we took the strongly fortified Albert ridge, and forced the
German retreat of last February. On April 8th of this year began the
battle of Arras which gave us the Vimy Ridge, and a free outlook over
the Douai plain. And finally, on June 7th, four days ago, the Messines
ridge, which I saw last year on March 2nd--apparently impregnable and
inaccessible!--from a neighbouring hill, with the German trenches scored
along its slopes, was captured by General Plumer and his splendid army
in a few hours, after more than twelve months' preparation, with lighter
casualties than have ever fallen to a British attack before, with heavy
losses to the enemy, large captures of guns, and 7,000 prisoners. Our
troops have since moved steadily forward; and the strategic future is
rich in possibilities. The Germans have regained nothing; and the German
press has not yet dared to tell the German people of the defeat. Let us
remember also the victorious campaign of this year in Mesopotamia; and
the welcome stroke of the past week in Greece, by which King "Tino" has
been at last dismissed, and the Liberal forces of the Greek nation
set free.
* * * * *
Aye, we do consider--we do remember--these things! We feel that the goal
is drawing slowly but steadily nearer, that ultimate victory is certain,
and with victory, the dawn of a better day for Europe. But who, least of
all a woman, can part from the tragic spectacle of this war without
bitterness of spirit?
_"Who will give us back our children?"_
Wickedness and wrong will find their punishment, and the dark Hours now
passing, in the torch-race of time, will hand the light on to Hours of
healing and of peace. But the dead return not. It is they whose
appealing voices seem to be in the air to-day, as we think of America.
Among the Celts of ancient Brittany there was a belief which still
survives in the traditions of the Breton peasants and in the name of
part of the Breton coast. Every All Souls' Night, says a story at least
as old as the sixth century, the souls of the dead gather on the cliffs
of Brittany, above that bay which is still called the "Bai des
Trépassés," waiting for their departure across the ocean to a far region
of the west, where the gods sit for judgment, and the good find peace.
On that night, the fishermen hear at midnight mysterious knockings at
their doors. They go down to the water's edge, and behold, there are
boats unknown to them, with no visible passengers. But the fishermen
take the oars, and though they see nothing, they feel the presence of
the souls crowding into the boats, and they row, on and on, into the
west, past the farthest point of any land they know. Suddenly, they feel
the boats lightened of all that weight of spirits, and the souls are
gone--streaming out with solemn cries and longing into the wide
illimitable ocean of the west, in search of some invisible shore.
So now the call of those hundreds of thousands who have given their
young lives--so beloved, so rich in promise!--for their country and the
freedom of men, is in your ears and ours. The dead are witnesses of the
compact between you and us. For that cause to which they brought their
ungrudged sacrifice has now laid its resistless claim on you. Together,
the free peoples of Europe and America have now to carry it to victory
--victory, just, necessary, and final.